The present invention relates to pallets in general, and to pallets intended to be delivered to points of retail sale in particular.
Many retail sales establishments receive smaller articles, such as boxes cans, and bottles mounted on pallets. Pallets used in combination with the forklift have produced substantial economies in the movement of goods by providing many different goods with a similar interface, allowing mechanization and unitization of goods.
In the New Economy, substantial reductions in the cost of replenishment of inventory have been achieved by large retailers by cooperating with suppliers to determine and even supply inventories necessary to meet fluctuating demands for goods. By pushing the responsibility for maintaining inventory back to the supplier of a good, and maintaining regional warehouses stocked by suppliers who are supplied with near realtime information on in-store purchases, the costs of the so-called "middle man" has been largely eliminated.
The pressure to reduce the cost of supplying goods continues to drive a search for improvements in distribution and retailing. One approach often employed by discount retailers is to stock and sell retail products directly off pallets, thus eliminating or reducing the cost of stocking goods to shelves. This technique of selling retail directly from pallets is being used on a selected basis by larger grocery stores and other mainline retailers.
Often when a retailer requires less than a full pallet load of goods, it is necessary to break down the full pallet into fractional pallet loads by unloading the larger pallet. This transfer is costly in time and manpower, and contributes to the cost of the goods.
What is needed is a pallet systems which facilitates this trend of reduced distribution cost and broadens the class of retailers who can take advantage of the new economies of distribution.